‘It’s a bribe’: the coastal areas that could become the UK’s nuclear dump

A skull overlooks Mablethorpe beach, and a throwback to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament protests of the 1980s. Photograph: John Robertson/The Guardian

Promises of jobs and investment are doing little to convince a remote Lincolnshire community to agree to hosting the country’s nuclear waste

Sandra Laville

Tue 17 May 2022

On the unspoilt Lincolnshire coast, where dog walkers enjoy the five miles of golden sandy beach and families take holidays in the caravan parks beyond the dunes, the efforts of British politicians to persuade the public nuclear energy is green, safe and clean do not seem to be gaining traction.

A skull glowers down from the sand dunes on to Mablethorpe Beach, a portent of death and destruction, and a throwback to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament protests of the 1980s.

It is here, in a 24-hectare (60-acre) disused gas terminal bordering the beach, that Boris Johnson’s big bet on nuclear energy is being tested. Experts on nuclear waste have said that until the UK builds a large underground nuclear waste dump or geological deposit facility (GDF) to safely store the 700,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste from the country’s 20th-century nuclear programme, no new nuclear plants should be created.

It is a problem that has dogged the development of nuclear energy not only in the UK, but across Europe and in the US: how to safely and permanently store the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. The solution of a GDF was put forward nearly 50 years ago, but the UK is no nearer to putting spades into the ground, and the cost of decommissioning and disposing of the country’s radioactive waste has risen to £131bn.

The disused gas terminal that would become the onshore part of the GDF. 

Photograph: John Robertson/The Guardian

When the prime minister recently promised eight new nuclear plants in as many years, the problem of the highly radioactive waste they would add to the stockpile was not mentioned.

It is, however, something very much at the forefrontof the minds of those living in the remote Lincolnshire village of Theddlethorpe and the neighbouring town of Mablethorpe.

Residents learned the seaside resort could become home to a vast nuclear dump – not from officials, but when a local BBC news programme broke the story, revealing talks had been taking place for two years.

The gas terminal site is under consideration for the onshore facility and the dump would be dug six miles off Mablethorpe Beach, between 200 and 1,000 metres below the sea. It would be made up of subterranean tunnels and vaults, with natural and artificial barriers to minimise the escape of radioactivity, according to documents from Radioactive Waste Management, now part of the Nuclear Waste Services (NWS).

Inside, the waste from the past 50 years of nuclear programmes, most of which is temporarily stored at Sellafield in Cumbria, would be deposited and sealed off for ever. The dump would also have room for another 73,000 cubic metres of waste from a new nuclear programme of up to 16GW.

An anti-nuclear garden decoration outside a house in Theddlethorpe. 

Photograph: John Robertson/The Guardian

The revelations sparked a grassroots protest which appears to have spread quickly among the retired population, many of whom moved to the area for its coastal beauty. Anti-nuclear signs dominate country lanes, skeletons have been erected on the beach and outside homes, and a series of public meetings have been held over the past eight months by a group called Guardians of the East Coast.

“I was totally shocked when we found out,” says Sara Bright, who lives in Mablethorpe. “This area was just not somewhere we ever thought they would put a nuclear dump. This is a tourist area, we have this beautiful beach, there is investment in tourism here. We rely on that tourism income and the idea that they could consider putting a nuclear dump here is just shocking to me.”

It is responses such as these that have repeatedly seen off attempts to build an underground dump for nuclear waste in the UK.

One nine years ago in Cumbria was rejected after an impassioned campaign by environmentalists and local people. This time, however, the approach has been different, NWS says. The government agency privately acknowledges that attempts in the past to find a site for the dump have been shrouded in secrecy.
This area was just not somewhere we ever thought they would put a nuclear dump. This is a tourist areaSara Bright, from Mablethorpe

Any location for a GDF has to be based on science, the geology of the area and the technical requirements of a mammoth engineering project. Crucially, though, the community that will host it must also be supportive. This time, NWS invited communities to put their area forward.

Four areas have identified themselves as willing to consider hosting the facility – Allerdale, Mid Copeland and South Copeland in Cumbria, and Theddlethorpe.

NWS promises the community that hosts the dump will benefit from great economic development opportunities including jobs and investment in roads and railways. In Cumbria, where a million-pound pot has been made available for local projects, a trickle of the promised stream of money has begun flowing: £47,801 on a BMX pump track at Seascale, £9,576 for the Beckermet reading and recreation rooms and £8,122 for an electronic scoreboard at Seascale cricket club.

In Lincolnshire a community partnership is in the process of being set up.

Jon Collins, a former leader of Nottingham city council and the independent chair of a working party set up in Theddlethorpe to decide on the GDF, has been holding meetings to provide information and answer questions from local people for several months. “If this was just a process of someone trying to sell an idea to the community I would not have been interested in taking part,” he says. “What I think is really interesting in public opinion terms is that sense of this is a big infrastructure project and it has got local implications; we need to work with the community and we are asking the community to make a judgment on this at the end of the process and if people don’t want it then it doesn’t happen.

“We talk to people about safety, about why the area is being considered and what kind of timescale we are talking about,” he says. “Most people are reasonably open minded, some people are pretty much not in favour and some are concerned about the potential impact locally.”

Ruth Gathercole, Brian Swift and Ken Smith of Guardians of the East Coast. 

Photograph: John Robertson/The Guardian

An initial assessment has concluded that the Lincolnshire site has the potential to host a GDF. Acknowledging the natural beauty of the area, NWS promises it will contribute to protecting conservation areas around the site and incorporate flood mitigation measures.

The agency has also attempted to placate those who complain the dump will kill tourism in the area. “There may be an opportunity to create a GDF/scientific centre of excellence, which itself could generate significant visitor traffic and even become a tourism point of interest,” the assessment says.

For the Mablethorpe councillor and Labour leader on East Lindsey district council, Tony Howard, NWS’s promises on behalf of government are nothing more than a bribe. “Suddenly they want us to have a nuclear dump and they are promising us railways, roads, local jobs. It’s just 30 pieces of silver, a bribe, the idea that everyone is going to go from selling burgers in the summer to becoming nuclear experts and working on this site is ridiculous. There will be specialists brought in to do the work.”

The idea that everyone is going to go from selling burgers to becoming nuclear experts and working on this site is ridiculous

Tony Howard, Labour councillor

He questions the very idea that nuclear energy is green, clean and safe at all. “We know very well in this area the dangers of nuclear, every year we host children from Chernobyl who come to the seaside for a holiday. We are fully aware that if things go wrong at a site like this, they stay wrong permanently and that does not sit well with trying to promote the town as a place with a superb beach which is wonderful for families. It jars.

“We should be investing in solar, wind, desalination. This site would be perfect for that. Nuclear is a folly.”

Ken Smith of Guardians of the East Coast is worried that the process of reaching a decision could take up to 15 years. “In that time tourist investment will drain away. Why would you want to invest in a caravan park if you think a nuclear dump is going to be built next to it? This whole process should stop right now.”

As the tourist season in Mablethorpe begins, NWS appears to be spreading its bets, seeking other areas to come forward.

Its director for community engagement and siting, Simon Hughes, says: “The UK search for a suitable site is about engaging in dialogue with communities and building an understanding of what hosting a GDF might mean for them, so that we can all make an informed decision.

“The previous process was very rigid and demanded decisions were made at set points and before all the information was available. The new process allows communities to engage in a much more flexible way, allowing questions to be answered without commitment. Communities also have the option to withdraw from the process at any time and will have to give explicit consent before construction can commence. If the local community doesn’t want it, it won’t happen.

“With over 60 years of legacy waste currently stored temporarily in surface sites around the country, developing a GDF is about delivering a safe, secure and environmentally sound long-term solution that protects current and future generations, ensuring it works for the host community and the country as a whole.”

Shut down fossil fuel production sites early to avoid climate chaos, says study

Exclusive: Nearly half existing facilities will need to close prematurely to limit heating to 1.5C, scientists say

The researchers calculated that 40% of developed fossil fuels must stay in the ground to have a 50-50 chance of global temperature rise stopping at 1.5C. 

Photograph: Eremeychuk Leonid/Alamy

Damian Carrington 

Environment editor

THE GUARDIAN
Tue 17 May 2022 07.00 BST

Nearly half of existing fossil fuel production sites need to be shut down early if global heating is to be limited to 1.5C, the internationally agreed goal for avoiding climate catastrophe, according to a new scientific study.

The assessment goes beyond the call by the International Energy Agency in 2021 to stop all new fossil fuel development to avoid the worst impacts of global heating, a statement seen as radical at the time.

The new research reaches its starker conclusion by not assuming that new technologies will be able to suck huge amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere to compensate for the burning of coal, oil and gas. Experts said relying on such technologies was a risky gamble.
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The Guardian revealed last week that 195 oil and gas “carbon bombs” are planned by the industry. This means projects that would each produce at least 1bn tonnes of CO2. Together, these carbon bombs alone would drive global heating beyond the 1.5C limit. But the dozen biggest oil companies are on track to spend $103m (£81m) a day until 2030 on climate-busting schemes.

Greg Muttitt, at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, was one of the leaders of the new research and said: “Halting new extraction projects is a necessary step, but still not enough to stay within our rapidly dwindling carbon budget. Some existing fossil fuel licences and production will need to be revoked and phased out early. Governments need to start tackling head-on how to do this in a fair and equitable way, which will require overcoming opposition from fossil fuel interests.”

Kelly Trout, at Oil Change International, the other lead author of the work, said: “Our study reinforces that building new fossil fuel infrastructure is not a viable response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. The world has already tapped too much oil and gas.” The researchers said governments should accelerate the introduction of renewable energy and efficiency measures instead.


Revealed: the ‘carbon bombs’ set to trigger catastrophic climate breakdown

The new study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, analysed a database of more than 25,000 oil and gas fields and developed a new dataset of coal mines. The researchers found that fields and mines that have already been developed would lead to 936bn tonnes of CO2 when fully exploited and burned. That is 25 years of global emissions at today’s rate – the world’s scientists agree emissions must fall by half by 2030.

The researchers calculated that 40% of developed fossil fuels must stay in the ground to have a 50-50 chance of global temperature rise stopping at 1.5C. Half the emissions would come from coal, a third from oil and a fifth from gas. The researchers found that almost 90% of developed reserves are located in just 20 countries, led by China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the US, followed by Iran, India, Indonesia, Australia and Canada.

The research only considered projects where companies had made final investment decisions, that means committed to spending billions on building rigs and pipelines to extract the fossil fuels. A 2021 study, led by Daniel Welsby at University College London, assessed all known reserves and found 90% of coal and 60% of oil and gas must remain unexploited.

Welsby said: “The new study is a valuable contribution to our understanding of what fossil fuels are highly likely to be produced and the volume which needs to remain in the ground if global warming is to be limited.” But he noted the study did not fully account for methane, a potent greenhouse gas, or the oil and gas used for petrochemicals.

The study did not estimate how much CO2 could be removed from the atmosphere by technology in future. “These technologies are unproven at scale,” said Muttitt. “There’s a lot of talk about them, but we believe it would be a mistake to predicate achieving climate goals on these being delivered at a very large scale. We just don’t know whether it will be possible in terms of financing or governance.”

Maeve O’Connor, at the Carbon Tracker thinktank, the author of a new report, said: “Oil and gas companies are gambling on emissions [reducing] technologies that pose a huge risk to both investors and the climate. Most of these technologies are still at an early stage of development, with few large projects working at anything like the scale required by company goals, while solutions that involve tree planting require huge areas of land.”

Research published in 2019 found that the world already had more fossil fuel power stations than needed and that some may need to be retired early. The new analysis found fossil fuel production sites also need to be closed, but how to do that is yet to be determined.

“This is an absolutely key question,” said Muttitt. “One of the biggest barriers will be the legal infrastructure that oil and gas companies and some coal companies have constructed to defend their investments and their profitability, through treaties like the energy charter treaty [ECT].” The ECT allows companies to sue governments over lost profits. There is some discussion, he said, that European Union nations could withdraw from the treaty en masse.

A small number of governments, including Denmark, Costa Rica, France, Ireland and California, have committed to stop issuing new fossil fuel licences. If more join, that could be a gamechanger, said Muttitt.

Dan Jørgensen, the Danish climate and energy minister, said: “The Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance provides a way for governments to act together to begin a managed phase-out of oil and gas production to avoid dangerous levels of climate change.”

The Guardian view on the Marcos family’s return: bad news for the Philippines

Editorial

The late dictator’s son didn’t have to rig the polls as his father did. But his electoral victory is still bad news for democracy

Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr at a campaign rally prior to his election as the new president of the Philippines. 

Photograph: Eloisa Lopez/Reuters

Tue 17 May 2022 

Thirty-six years after the people of the Philippines swept the Marcos family from power in a peaceful popular uprising, they have returned it to the presidency via the ballot box. Last week’s electoral landslide for Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, son of the late dictator, was a shocking and frightening moment for those who survived the violence of his father’s regime and witnessed the plunder of as much as $10bn from the country. The incoming president claimed more than double the votes of his closest opponent, Leni Robredo, a human rights lawyer and the incumbent vice-president.

Disinformation (extensive, heavily organised and lucrative for those behind it) has played a crucial role. Across social media, the true history of Ferdinand Marcos Sr’s rule – of torture, executions, debt and economic crisis – has been erased by the lie of a “golden age” of stability and prosperity. At the same time, its members were “celebritised”, with TikTok videos presenting them as an aspirational, influencer-style figures while Mr Marcos Jr sidestepped major debates and tough interviews. Simultaneously came relentless and often misogynistic attacks on Ms Robredo

It is not just that the population is highly technologically literate but often less media literate. There are deeper issues. The People Power revolution of 1986 was unfinished. The political elites remained in place; influential families hold up to 90% of elected positions. Most of the money amassed by Mr Marcos Sr was never recovered, and schools failed to teach the new generations the full story of his rule. The political advance was not matched by social and economic progress; the political dynasties and big conglomerates have ensured that the Philippines remains one of the most unequal societies in Asia.

The outgoing president, Rodrigo Duterte, has also contributed. His brutal and erratic authoritarianism – notably a “war on drugs” which has killed thousands, including children – proved popular. He has strengthened the police and army, creating a culture of impunity, while undermining democratic institutions including independent media. He allowed the late dictator to be buried in a cemetery for war heroes, helping to rehabilitate his image. Critically, his daughter Sara Duterte decided not to stand for president, running (successfully) as Mr Marcos Jr’s vice-president.

The Philippines must contend with the aftermath of the pandemic: almost a quarter of the nation now live below the poverty line. The country is balancing uneasily between the US and China, with repercussions for the wider region. Mr Marcos Jr has nothing to offer, though some insist that he will not be as ruthless as his father. He has already painted himself as a victim of the press.

Other countries should also take heed. As one leading expert on disinformation notes, this success reflects problems seen in many advanced democracies, not just in the global south; Facebook’s public policy director for global elections previously described the Philippines as “patient zero”. Reiterating the truth is not enough. Reaching out to excluded communities and crafting compelling narratives is essential. Ms Robredo’s campaign created real passion at the grassroots, but the efforts came too late. The Marcos family’s return to the top is a triumph of determination and has been a long time in the making. In that respect alone, their opponents – and progressives elsewhere – could learn something from them.

What unites conservatives in the US and the UK?

Terrible solutions to the cost of living crisis

Get a better job! Work until you’re 73! From Rachel Maclean to Laura Ingraham, rightwingers love to offer out-of-touch solutions

Wide of the mark … (from left) Lee Anderson, Rachel Maclean and Laura Ingraham. 

Composite: UK Parliament/PA; Chris McAndrew; Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Wed 18 May 2022 

Energy bills have gone through the roof, but that hasn’t curtailed the British government’s enthusiasm for gaslighting. Rather than take any responsibility for the cost of living crisis (or, God forbid, try to solve it), Tory politicians seem to be in competition to see who can dole out the most patronising advice.

The latest example of Conservative condescension comes via Rachel Maclean, the safeguarding minister. Maclean told Sky news on Monday that anyone struggling with the cost of living crisis should consider working more hours or think about getting a better-paying job. Thanks, Rachel! Never considered that myself. Now that you mention it, though, I don’t know why everyone doesn’t just become a CEO or an investment banker. It is brilliant ideas such as this that get you a salary of £104,000 in 2020/21 and allow you to claim £218,000 in expenses on top of it, as Maclean did last year.


Maclean isn’t the only Tory MP offering helpful life hacks. Lee Anderson claimed last week that food poverty isn’t actually a problem – the problem is the silly poor people: “They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget.” Anderson also claimed that you can make a nice, nutritious meal for 30p. Uh, maybe 30 years ago.

Conservatives across the Atlantic, I should note, are equally condescending and out of touch. One classic came from Fox News’s Laura Ingraham. Earlier this year, she argued passionately against the forgiveness of student loan debt by saying her mum worked as a waitress until she was 73 to help pay off college loans. “Loan forgiveness [is] just another insult to those who play by the rules,” she said. Sound like pretty terrible rules to me.

Still, rule-abiders take note: inflation is nothing to worry about as long as you work more hours, get a better-paid job, cook 30p recipes and get your mother to waitress until she is well into her 70s.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Carbon pollution pushed environmental breakdown to record levels in 2021

People have warped the climate so much that in 2021 oceans grew hotter, higher and more acidic than ever recorded, according to the World Meteorological Organization.


Rising sea levels have made coastal floods an existential threat for fishing villages across the world


Humanity has clogged the atmosphere with so much heat-trapping gas that four critical measures of the health of the planet broke records last year, according to a report published Wednesday by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Razing forests and burning fossil fuels had already pushed the climate into a precarious state that human civilization had never previously seen. But in 2021, the State of the Climate Report 2021 found, the world broke records for greenhouse gas concentrations, while oceans grew to new heights, temperatures and levels of acidity. Extreme weather caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage as storms and wildfires strengthened by climate change tore through communities and swept away homes, fishing boats and farms.

"Years of investment in disaster preparedness means that we are better at saving lives, though economic losses are soaring," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas in a statement. "But much more needs to be done."

Climate change is making tropical cyclones stronger and more violent

Countries continue to burn fossil fuels despite warnings

In 2015, world leaders signed the Paris Agreement to try to keep the planet from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century — a pledge that scientists have shown would require immediate and deep cuts to emissions.

But even as violent weather has wrought havoc on their citizens, governments from the United States to China are continuing to pour money into infrastructure to extract and burn more fossil fuels. The policies they are pursuing are set to heat the planet 2.7 C by the end of the century. Scientists expect the 1.5 C threshold will likely be crossed in a decade.

"Below those levels means manageable climate change," said Omar Baddour, a climate scientist at the WMO and lead author of the report. "Above will mean it's very difficult to manage those consequences."

Hotter average temperatures mean more waves of extreme heat

The last seven years have been the hottest seven on record, according to the WMO, a United Nations body. Last year was 1.1 C hotter than the average between 1850 and 1900. While that was slightly cooler than in some recent years — the result of natural climatic phenomenon called La Nina — it did not change the overall warming trend.

Hidden behind that increase lies a deadly worsening of extremes.

In July, scientists from the research group World Weather Attribution (WWA) found climate change had supercharged a heat wave that roasted the US and Canada weeks earlier. Many of the victims were elderly people who were unable to cool down during unnaturally warm nights in homes without air-conditioning. Had humanity not polluted the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, the researchers found, the heat wave would have been 150 times less likely and 2 C cooler.

The same team also found that climate change had made heavy rains the following month in northern Europe 3-19% stronger, worsening floods that killed more than 180 people in Germany alone.

Now, an estimated 1 in 6 people on the planet are struggling through a blistering heat wave in India and Pakistan that has overwhelmed electricity grids and — particularly for outdoor workers and those with health problems — turned daily tasks like going to work and buying groceries into a gamble with fate.

The higher temperatures rise, the more people will be pushed toward the limits of adaptation

Heat wave scorches crops needed to alleviate food shortages

India's national and regional governments must immediately put together heat management plans, said Aditi Mukherji, a scientist at the International Water Management Institute. But more importantly, she added, India and other developing countries must keep the pressure on high historical emitters to immediately cut their emissions. "We simply cannot adapt to such heat waves. Mitigation is the best adaptation."

The effects are being felt beyond the Indian subcontinent. The heat wave has scorched crops in the country urgently needed to alleviate global food shortages in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. India, which is the world's second-biggest wheat producer after China, banned exports of the crop on Saturday, triggering a further rise in wheat prices. It comes on the back of a series of crises — conflict, extreme weather, economic shocks and the pandemic — that had already "undermined decades of progress" towards food security, the WMO found.

"It's deeply concerning," said Maarten Van Aalst, Director of the international Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, who contributed to the WWA analyses. "With all these compound crises, the poorest and most vulnerable are hit hardest."

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has disrupted wheat exports and raised fears of famines

Fossil fuel investments incompatible with carbon budget

In April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a report on climate solutions that found the pollution that would result from using existing and planned fossil fuel infrastructure over their lifetimes is more than enough to cross the 1.5 C threshold. At that level of warming, a 1-in-10-year heat wave will have become 5 times more likely. A 1-in-50-year heat wave will have become 8 times more likely.

A study published in the journal Energy Research and Social Science last year found the four biggest investor-owned fossil fuel companies — Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell — were responsible for 11% of global fossil fuel and cement emissions between 1965 and 2018. The figure includes pollution that came from burning the fuels they sold.

Germany, the sixth-biggest historical polluter of greenhouse gases, has proven reluctant to kick its addiction to coal

Chevron, ExxonMobil and BP did not respond to a request for comment on their responsibility for extreme weather events made stronger by burning fuels they sold. Shell declined to comment.

Fossil fuel companies have not only caused the climate crisis but also hidden it from people and lobbied to delay action, said Mitzi Jonelle Tan, a climate activist with the Fridays for Future movement in the Philippines. The latest IPCC report, compiled by hundreds of leading scientists, found that "opposition from status quo interests" is a barrier to establishing stringent climate policies.

"People are suffering because of their greed," said Tan. "The least these companies can do is pay reparations for the losses and damages we have experienced."

Edited by: Jennifer Collins

THE WORLD IS BURNING

Russia: No sign of relief

Many regions in Russia have been burning for weeks, with the area around Yakutia in the far northeast having been hit particularly hard. The authorities have counted more than 250 fires currently burning across Russia, covering a total area of more than 3.5 million hectares (8.6 million acres).

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Climate change indicators hit record highs in 2021: UN

Greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification all set new records last year, the UN's World Meteorological Organization says 

(AFP/NOEL CELIS) (NOEL CELIS)

Robin MILLARD
Wed, May 18, 2022

Four key climate change indicators all set new record highs in 2021, the United Nations said Wednesday, warning that the global energy system was driving humanity towards catastrophe.

Greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification all set new records last year, the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its "State of the Global Climate in 2021" report.

The annual overview is "a dismal litany of humanity's failure to tackle climate disruption", UN chief Antonio Guterres said.

"The global energy system is broken and bringing us ever closer to climate catastrophe."


The WMO said human activity was causing planetary-scale changes on land, in the ocean and in the atmosphere, with harmful and long-lasting ramifications for ecosystems.

WMO chief Petteri Taalas said the war in Ukraine had been overshadowing climate change, which "is still the biggest challenge we are having as mankind".

- Record heat -

The report confirmed the past seven years were the top seven hottest years on record.

Back-to-back La Nina events at the start and end of 2021 had a cooling effect on global temperatures last year.

Even so, it was still one of the warmest years ever recorded, with the average global temperature in 2021 about 1.11 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level.

The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change saw countries agree to cap global warming at "well below" 2C above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 -- and 1.5C if possible.

"All major climate indicators are quite frankly heading in the wrong direction and without much greater ambition and urgency, we are about to lose the narrow window of opportunity to keep the 1.5-degree goal alive," Guterres' climate action advisor Selwin Hart told a press conference.

Taalas said the climate was changing "before our eyes".

"The heat trapped by human-induced greenhouse gases will warm the planet for many generations to come. Sea level rise, ocean heat and acidification will continue for hundreds of years unless means to remove carbon from the atmosphere are invented," he said.

- 'Consistent picture of warming world' -

Four key indicators of climate change "build a consistent picture of a warming world that touches all parts of the Earth system", the report said.

Greenhouse gas concentrations reached a new global high in 2020, when the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) reached 413.2 parts per million globally, or 149 percent of the pre-industrial level.

Data indicate they continued to increase in 2021 and early 2022, the report said.

Taalas reiterated Covid-19 lockdowns had had no impact on atmospheric greenhouse gases concentrations.

Global mean sea level reached a new record high in 2021, rising an average of 4.5 millimetres per year throughout 2013 to 2021, the report said.

That is more than double the average annual rise of 2.1 mm per year between 1993 and 2002, with the increase between the two time periods "mostly due to the accelerated loss of ice mass from the ice sheets", it said.

Taalas said the melting of glaciers would raise sea levels for hundreds or thousands of years to come, due to CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.

"This is a lost game already," he said.

- Price of failure -

Ocean heat hit a record high last year, exceeding the 2020 value, the report said.

And it is expected the upper 2,000 metres of the ocean will continue to warm in the future -- "a change which is irreversible on centennial to millennial timescales", said the WMO.

The ocean absorbs around 23 percent of the annual emissions of human-caused CO2 into the atmosphere. While this slows the rise of atmospheric CO2 concentrations, CO2 reacts with seawater and leads to ocean acidification.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded with "very high confidence" that open ocean surface acidity is at the highest "for at least 26,000 years".

"We should take action now," Taalas told AFP.

"We are now heading 2.5 to three degrees warming instead of 1.5, which would be best for our future.

"It is better to invest in climate-friendly technologies than to live with the consequences of climate change that are going to be even 20 times more expensive if we fail."

rjm/nl/raz

The Cult of Lorenzo Dow: What a 19th-century rebel preacher owes an Anglo-Saxon monk

Joseph Brean - 

In the long-running annual series Oh, The Humanities! the National Post surveys academic scholarship at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, which is entirely virtual this year, from May 12-20.

© Provided by National PostLorenzo Dow, a Methodist preacher who was born in 1777 and died in 1834, was more famous in death than in life.

The stereotypical image of the charismatic cult figurehead has gone through many tweaks and transformations over the centuries, from the desert hermit and the otherworldly mystic to the doomsday technofuturist and the apocalyptic soothsayer.

Each time a new movement arises around a charismatic preacher, it draws on the cultural shapes of those who came before, sometimes long before, especially the most historically influential of these figures: the carpenter from Roman Judea, the ascetic aristocrat from northern India, the trader from Mecca.

Scott McLaren, a cultural historian at York University and co-editor of the Historical Papers of the Canadian Society of Church History, got to wondering about this consistent power of a single person in his work on Lorenzo Dow, a wild-haired rebel visionary miracle worker Methodist preacher in early 19th century Connecticut who travelled America and Britain and became a saintly figure after his death on the strength of a popular autobiography.

McLaren drew a curious connection. He noted how similar Dow’s popular fate was to that of Saint Cuthbert, the 7th-century Anglo-Saxon Northumbrian monk and hermit famous for healing miracles who became both a figure of veneration and a source of northern English political identity for centuries after his death, as he remains today.

Both were admired in life, but rose steeply in esteem after death. In both cases, spookily, their bodies were disinterred long after they died and were reportedly found incorrupt.

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In Cuthbert’s case, when his coffin was opened more than a decade after his death in 687, his body was incorrupt, according to the 8th century English historian Bede. The same thing is said to have happened when it was opened again in 1104.

In Dow’s case, when they dug him up after 40 years in 1874 at Holmead Burying Ground in Washington, D.C., for reburial at nearby Oak Hill Cemetery, his long white beard “rested whole on his chest and much of his clothing was still preserved intact,” according to a new paper by McLaren, presented Tuesday at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

In the tangled cultural traditions of charismatic preachers, that is no simple coincidence. In humanities scholarship, it rarely is. The new recapitulates the old. This tale of the incorrupt body suggested the cult of Lorenzo Dow was a 19th century New World Protestant reprise of the more famous medieval devotional movement focused on Cuthbert.

American Methodists who admired Dow were not consciously trying to imitate Northumbrian devotional practices of late antiquity. On the contrary. Dow himself was firmly opposed to, as McLaren describes it, the “wild liturgical excesses of Roman Catholicism.” But somehow it happened, thanks to what McLaren calls a “perennial human need for heroes.”

A “kind of cult came to surround his memory — a cult that was, for many practical purposes, not unlike the cults that grew up around Roman Catholic saints all across Europe and that were founded on a rich tradition of hagiography,” McLaren wrote.

“What does it mean that 19th and early 20th-century evangelicals wanted — but could not quite manage in the shadow of their own theologies — to turn Lorenzo Dow into a saint after the pattern of those medieval holy men and women who were venerated across the centuries? Perhaps there is a deep-seated human desire, one that no amount of theology can entirely overcome, to create towering figures that loom like colossi over the wreck and woe of a fallen world and a broken humanity.”

Both men were famous in their time, but it was only after their death that their reputations really took off.

Cuthbert was also said to have performed miracles, including putting out a fire with prayer, and stilling the wind to save a group of monks on rafts from being blown out to sea.

Dow was a study in gothic. He laid a curse on a town in Georgia, Jacksonboro, that remains a ghost town today, after he was banned from preaching there. This story, like the rest, is doubtlessly embellished and exaggerated, McLaren writes, which Dow himself “would somehow approve.”

He was also something of a grifter, who once paid a boy to climb a tree with a trumpet and blow it on his secret signal, spooking the crowd as if judgment were at hand.

It was unusual for American evangelicals to fixate so much on one man, but as McLaren noticed, old habits die hard.

“Christians for centuries practised a spirituality rooted in the cult of the saints until the veneration of such figures was finally forbidden by Protestant reformers who objected as much to Catholicism’s narrow definition of sainthood as they did to the soaring depictions of such men and women in oil and glass across the whole length and breadth of medieval Christendom,” McLaren wrote.

What that meant in 19th century America was that Lorenzo Dow remained on the outs with his own Methodist Conference, viewed skeptically for his “irregular conduct.”

“Dow’s perennial conflict with authority, combined with his unkempt appearance, refusal to observe social norms, and willingness to single out and castigate specific sinners by name meant that, while some revered him, others loathed him,” McLaren wrote.

This was an early version of an American pop cultural superstar people love to hate. McLaren sees a lesson here for historians about their reluctance to emphasize the famous and infamous, and their preference for broader impersonal social analysis.

“When history finally denies us our heroes, we find ourselves resorting to those fictional worlds where we can at least have superheroes,” McLaren concluded. Like Cuthbert, Dow became “a religious celebrity.”

India: Is it time to declare marital rape a crime?

The recent failure of an Indian court to deliver a clear verdict criminalizing marital rape has highlighted the public divide on the issue.



Marital rape is a crime in most countries worldwide but India remains among the 30-odd nations where it is not criminalized

Last week, a two-judge bench of the Delhi High Court delivered a split verdict on petitions seeking to criminalize marital rape in India, in a setback for women's rights groups that have long campaigned for its criminalization.

While one judge struck down Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, which says a man cannot be prosecuted for rape within marriage, the other judge disagreed and upheld the provision.

Favoring criminalization, Justice Rajiv Shakdher said the section violated Article 14 of the Indian constitution — which guarantees equality before the law — and therefore should be struck down.

"The right to withdraw consent at any given point in time forms the core of the woman's right to life and liberty," he said in his order.

Justice Hari Shankar, however, disagreed and said the provision does not violate any law and the exception was "reasonable" and could continue.

The case is now expected to be appealed in the Supreme Court.

How did women's rights organizations react?

The split judgment drew widespread criticism from women's rights organizations.

"The judge is saying that even if the husband has sex with the wife without the latter's consent, he cannot he considered her rapist since this would call into question the sacred nature of the marriage institution. This is bizarre reasoning," Kavita Krishnan of the All-India Progressive Women's Association told DW.

"Does a woman have to surrender her dignity and bodily autonomy when she marries? Does she become the property of her husband? This judgment, while not surprising, is nevertheless shameful," she added.

Priya Kumari, a lawyer, shares a similar view.

"To think that criminalizing the provision would be misused and sabotage the institution of marriage, is outdated and flawed," she told DW.

Mariam Dhawale, national general secretary of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) and one of the petitioners in the case, said she was dejected with the split verdict.

"We will appeal against the marital rape exemption, an archaic law which came into being 160 years ago," Dhawale told DW.

Promoting gender equality in India by focusing on boys

Opposition from government and religious groups

The verdict has highlighted the public divide on an issue that involves not just the letter of the law but complex social customs.

During the hearings in court, both the Delhi government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's federal government argued that marital rape could not be criminalized unless there is societal consensus on the issue.

The government said criminalization could have a "destabilizing effect on the institution of marriage."

Religious groups and men's rights activists have also opposed the petitions, saying it could be misused to harass men by leveling frivolous charges.
What do men's rights groups say?

"Clearly, a binary and monochromatic approach to such a complex issue does grave injustice," J Sai Deepak, a lawyer representing Men Welfare Trust, one of the NGOs opposing the criminalization, told DW.

"Critically, it is evident from a reading of both opinions that there is need for greater empirical data on the subject, in addition to collection of inputs from a wide array of stakeholders," he added.

"To my mind, the legislature, and not a court of law, is best suited to undertake such an exercise."

Men Welfare Trust is a Delhi-based NGO, comprising a team of volunteers, focused on dealing with issues such as the victimization of men and their families due to misuse of gender-based laws.

"This is not the concern of the court. All stakeholders must be consulted and if this was criminalized it would have set a wrong precedent," a MWT member said.
Verdict reveals 'a patriarchal mindset'

Marital rape is a crime in most countries worldwide but India remains among the 30-odd nations where it is not criminalized.

Since it is not a crime, the National Crime Records Bureau does not maintain any separate statistics on marital rape.

However, more than 30% of women in India who have ever been married, have experienced spousal physical, sexual, or emotional violence, according to the latest round of the National Family Health Survey.

"The verdict reveals just one glaring fact and that is the patriarchal mindset," women's rights activist Ritu Kaushik said. "Talking of women's empowerment or rights is all a sham when this is the thinking that prevails."

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

Climate-stricken world needs renewables Marshall Plan: UN chief
Author: AFP|

Update: 18.05.2022

Renewable technologies should be treated as freely available 'global public goods', unconstrained by intellectual property, UN chief Antonio Guterres says / © AFP/File

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday outlined what amounts to a global Marshall Plan for ushering in a world powered by renewable energy rather than coal, gas and oil.

To avoid catastrophic climate change, humanity must "end fossil fuel pollution and accelerate the renewable energy transition, before we incinerate our only home," he said in prerecorded remarks timed to coincide with the release of a major UN state-of-climate report.

Renewable technologies should be treated as freely available "global public goods", unconstrained by intellectual property, he said.

One option might be so-called patent pooling, as has been done by major drug companies to speed the delivery of life-saving drugs for HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, noted a senior UN official who asked not to be named.

"The Secretary-General believes that the conversation around intellectual property should happen because we are in a crisis," the UN official said.

"If we have a ready solution, why not relax intellectual property rules so that solution can help us solve this crisis?"

Guterres singled out battery storage, calling for an international coalition of industry, tech companies and financial institutions, led by governments, to "fast-track innovation and deployment".

Solar and wind are the fastest growing clean energy technologies, but storing renewable electricity that can only be generated when the sun is shining or the wind blowing has been a persistent bottleneck for even more rapid rollout.

- Not fast enough -

It was unclear whether Guterres envisions a new oversight body or favours working through existing structures, such as the 86-nation International Solar Alliance or the G20 group of major economies.

The UN chief's five-point plan to "jump-start" a renewables boom also called for scaling-up and diversifying the supply of critical components and raw materials, such as rare Earth metals.

Currently, lithium -- crucial to the manufacture of electric vehicle batteries -- is sourced from a handful of countries, with China controlling 80 percent of global refining, according to BloombergNEF.

Transitioning to clean energy will also require far greater supplies of copper, silicon, nickel, cobalt and other elements that are scarce and/or in high demand.

Europe alone is estimated to need 35 times more lithium than it uses today over the next three decades.

Expanding renewable capacity is forecast to account for almost 95 percent of the increase in global electricity through 2026, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

But projected growth is not nearly fast enough to ensure the Paris Agreement target of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

Currently, solar and wind energy only account for eight percent of global electricity generation. Adding hydro and other renewable sources pushes the total up to 30 percent, with coal and gas still dominant overall.

- $11 million -

Guterres also said governments must cut red tape and streamline approvals for solar and wind projects.

The IEA has identified the issuing of permits and grid integration as major barriers to accelerating renewables deployment.

"In Europe, it takes eight years for a wind project to be approved," the UN official said.

"In the United States, I understand that it can take as much as a decade at the federal level alone, where one needs to go through about 28 federal agencies."

The UN Secretary-General also called for an end to approximately half-a-trillion dollars in fossil fuel subsidies, roughly two-thirds of which go to consumers and the rest directly to industry.

"Every minute of every day, coal, oil and gas receive roughly $11 million in subsidies," Guterres said.

"While people suffer from high prices at the pump, the oil and gas industry is raking in billions from a distorted market," he added. "This scandal must stop."

Finally, Guterres challenged private and public finance to scale up investment in solar and wind to at least $4 trillion a year, more than triple current levels.

Development banks and finance institutions should align their lending portfolios with the Paris treaty temperature targets by 2024, he said.

UN chief Antonio Guterres calls for renewables push following damning climate report

The UN chief has called for more investment in renewables and an end to the millions of dollars in subsidies for fossil fuels. Several climate indicators broke troubling records last year.



Wind and solar energy currently account for just 8% of global electricity generation

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres released a five-point plan on Wednesday aimed at boosting investments in renewable energies. His message coincided with the publication of the World Meteorological Organization's Climate Report for 2021.

"We must end fossil fuel pollution and accelerate the renewable energy transition before we incinerate our only home," the UN chief said in his pre-recorded message. "Time is running out."

Wednesday's report showed that critical climate indicators all broke records last year and that the last seven years were the hottest on record.

"Today's State of the Climate report is a dismal litany of humanity's failure to tackle climate disruption," Guterres said.
What is Guterres' five-point plan?

His plan focused on increasing the spread of renewable technologies, along with greater investments, as well as ending subsidies for fossil fuels.

He called for public and private investments in renewables to be tripled to at least $4 trillion a year.

The plan would also require governments to lift intellectual property protections on renewable technologies to increase access to them, as well as to open up supply chains of materials necessary for such technology which are currently controlled by just a few key players.

Guterres also pleaded with governments to end subsidies for fossil fuels that currently amount to half a trillion dollars per year, while also promoting renewable energies. He said fossil fuel companies were getting rich while consumers were paying the price.

"While people suffer from high prices at the pump, the oil and gas industry is raking in billions from a distorted market," he said.

Trajectories not on target

Even though renewable energies are expected to source most of the growing electricity demands in the coming years, the rate of growth is nowhere near fast enough to keep global temperatures below the 1.5 degrees Celsius increase over pre-industrial levels as outlined in the Paris Agreement.

Renewables currently provide just 30% of global electricity generation, with fossil fuel energies still dominating.

Guterres pointed to red tape as one of the key obstacles to the growth of renewable energies, as well as subsidies that end up promoting fossil fuels.

"In Europe, it takes eight years for a wind project to be approved," he said. "In the United States, I understand that it can take as much as a decade at the federal level alone, where one needs to go through about 28 federal agencies."

"Every minute of every day, coal, oil and gas receive roughly $11 million in subsidies," he added.

Australian election could end country's climate change inaction

Flood and drought-stricken Australia votes on Saturday. As a major exporter of coal and one of the world's worst CO2 emitters per capita, the result will be decisive for global climate goals.


Australians want action on climate change, but major parties have hardly mentioned the issue in their election campaigns

The results of the Australian election this Saturday will set the climate agenda for one of the planet's worst per-capita CO2 emitters. It comes as the world faces a rapidly closing window to stop the most severe impacts of climate change.

The country, dubbed a "wrecker" at climate change negotiations, is a major exporter of fossil fuels, largely to East Asia and India. It has been criticized for grossly insufficient climate targets by the UK and US as well as its neighboring Pacific nations who could see their homes disappear as sea levels rise.

At the same time, polls clearly show voters back stronger climate action in the "sunburned land," having already experienced deadly and costly flooding and wildfires linked to climate change in recent years. The country is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis.

"Australians are feeling and seeing climate damage now and that's why most Australians are very worried about climate change and want the government to do a lot more than they are," said Kelly O'Shanassy, chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF).

Despite public support, the major parties vying for votes in the tight election have barely mentioned the issue in their campaigns, said Peter Christoff, senior research fellow with Melbourne Climate Futures, which is part of the University of Melbourne.

"And that's really quite concerning and worrying," said Christoff.


Wildfires in 2021: Australians are already feeling the effects of the climate crisis
Coal lobby pushing against climate protection policies

Since 2007, Australia's two major parties, the center-left Labor Party and the conservative Liberal Party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Scott Morrison, have been in an open war over climate change policies, leading to multiple leaders being toppled.

"The public vitriol in political exchanges — particularly over an emissions trading scheme and a price on carbon and carbon taxes — led to some of the ugliest politics we've seen in Australia over a 15-year period," said Christoff.

Labor believes it lost the supposedly unlosable "climate election" in 2019 to the Liberals because of a backlash against its strong climate policies and job fears in key seats in coal-mining areas.

Australia is the world's second biggest coal exporter. And because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, rising coal prices mean Australia will likely earn 100 billion Australian dollars (€67 billion, $70 billion) in one year from coal.

Meanwhile, between 100,000 and 300,000 Australian jobs connected to coal, oil and gas are at risk if the country doesn't prepare for the shift away from fossil fuels, according to a study by independent Australian think tank, the Centre for Policy Development.

Major parties weak on climate

To date, the conservatives have stymied significant action on climate change — blocking a major emissions trading scheme, slashing funding on climate research, subsidizing and allowing fossil fuel production to expand and abolishing the government-funded Climate Commission.

At the 2021 UN climate conference in Glasgow, the government refused to budge from its 2030 emission cuts of 26% to 28% on 2005 levels — one of the weakest targets in the developed world. The UN Climate Action Tracker rates Australia's emissions and net-zero targets as "poor" and "highly insufficient," putting it on a path to more than 3 degrees Celsius warming.

Going into the 2022 election, the Liberal Party pledged to go net-zero by 2050, but has given itself scope to ignore this. At the same time, it has vowed to continue exports of Australia's coal and gas past 2050 and has included these fossil fuels in its domestic energy blueprint.

Labor — currently forecast to win this election— has also vowed to go net-zero by 2050 and has stronger emission cuts of 43% by 2030. It has pledged tens of billions of dollars to revitalize the nation's energy grid and install solar banks and batteries. But it says it won't stop exporting coal and gas.

Anthony Albanese's Labor Party look set to win

A new climate force in the country?

Australia is dominated by two main parties, but by dragging their heels on climate change Labor and the Liberals have opened the door to new challengers.

A group of independents, dubbed "the teals," are competing with Liberal lawmakers for urban seats. Mostly women, they receive funding from a group called Climate 200 — a relatively new political fund established by clean energy investor Simon Holmes a Court — and have campaigned on climate, integrity, and gender equality. They have all set ambitious 2030 emission reduction targets ranging from 50% to 70% by 2030.

And they appear to be attracting moderate Liberal voters who have become disillusioned with a lack of movement on climate change. Most recent polling shows several key seats are at risk.

Meanwhile, the Greens have enjoyed a surge and are now polling at about 15% nationally — compared to 10% in the 2019 election. They have pledged to cut emissions by 75% by 2030, go net-zero by 2035, phase out the mining, burning and exporting of coal by 2030 and convert the grid to 100% renewables.

Depending on the result of the election, both the Greens and the teal candidates could wield significant power over the government.

Federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg may lose his seat to a climate-friendly independent

Business calling for climate action, huge potential for renewables

Businesses are also calling for more action. In one example, Australian tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes is attempting to use his wealth to force energy giant AGL to exit coal-fired power generation.

Even the Business Council of Australia — which represents big banks and corporations, such as industrial and retail giant Wesfarmers, mining companies BHP and Rio Tinto and airline Qantas — is now also calling for major emission cuts by 2030. It's a dramatic shift for the organization that in 2018 called 45% emissions reduction cuts "an economy wrecking target."

"It's certainly not the community that is holding back the Australian political parties on climate action and also not the business community," ACF's O'Shanassy said. "Everyone wants climate action except for the people that go to Parliament House."

But neither Labor nor the Liberals' targets are enough to bring Australia in line with its Paris Commitments. Emissions cuts of at least 50% by 2030 are what's required to keep it below the upper threshold of 2 degrees warming and about 75% for the 1.5-degree target, according to some estimates.

ACF believes the next government should take advantage of the country's huge solar and wind potential and could quickly cut emissions while preserving jobs by replacing fossil fuel exports with products created with renewable energy such as hydrogen and ammonia.

"We need to use the vast amount of renewable energy we have in this country. We need to times it by about ten and then turn that into exports and stop exporting pollution to the world," O'Shanassy said. "That would be our greatest contribution to climate change."

Conservatives tipped to lose in Australian nail-biter election




Many voters are expected to support candidates unaffiliated with the traditional left-right parties (AFP/Saeed KHAN)

Andrew BEATTY
Tue, May 17, 2022, 11:18 PM·5 min read

Australians punch drunk after three crisis-ridden years of fire, flood and plague will go to the polls on Saturday, in a tight race narrowly tipped to end a decade of conservative rule.

Opinion polls have consistently shown centre-left Labor ahead, suggesting a government led by veteran party lawmaker Anthony Albanese that would be more climate-friendly and less antagonistic toward China.

But pugilistic Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who leads a conservative coalition, appears to be rapidly closing the gap as election day approaches.

The often-acrimonious campaign has been marked by fears about soaring prices, divisions over Morrison's leadership and anxiousness about tougher days to come.

The last three years have seen Australia's once-envied way of life upended by back-to-back bushfires, droughts, the Covid-19 pandemic and several "once-in-a-century" floods.

Australians -- usually some of the world's most optimistic voters -- have grown markedly more dissatisfied with their lives, more pessimistic about their future and more turned off by traditional political parties, according to polling by Ipsos.

For many Aussies, their unofficial mantra of gung-ho optimism -- "she'll be right" -- suddenly seems a bit wrong.

"It has been a very difficult period for the country," said Mark Kenny, a professor at the Australian National University.

"There's a fair bit of dissatisfaction with this government, and the prime minister's standing has been called into question quite a lot."

Surveys show the malaise is pronounced among women and younger voters, who face the prospect of being poorer than their parents while inheriting a country at the pointy end of climate change and located in an increasingly tough neighbourhood.

- Lurching from crisis to crisis -

Just over 17 million Australians are registered to go to the polls on Saturday, electing 151 representatives to the lower house and just over half the members of the Senate.

Voting is compulsory and voters rank the candidates in order of preference, adding extra layers of unpredictability to the outcome.

Fifty-four-year-old Morrison is hoping for a repeat of his 2019 "miracle" come-from-behind election victory. But he will have to overcome the collective trauma of the last three years.

Within months of his shock victory, the "Black Summer" bushfires would cut through the east of the country, burning an area the size of Finland and choking Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne in a miasma of acrid smoke for weeks on end.

Morrison's decision to take a family holiday to Hawaii in the middle of the crisis was widely pilloried, as was his downplaying of the affair by saying "I don't hold a hose, mate."

No sooner had the fires ended than the Covid-19 pandemic began.

Morrison's popularity initially surged as Australians watched the horrors unfolding in China, Italy and elsewhere from a state of Covid-free normalcy on Bondi and other beaches.

The turning point was the lengthy delay in rolling out vaccines, despite Morrison's promises that Australia was at the "front of the queue", said Ben Raue of The Tally Room, a popular political blog.

The delay prolonged lockdowns in major cities and a two-year-long border closure -- splitting families and gaining Australia a reputation for being a "hermit state" isolated from the rest of the world.

"That was the point when Morrison went from being a little bit behind, to being quite a long way behind" in the polls, said Raue.

"They've never really recovered since then. They've had some better polls and some worse polls, but they've pretty much never been ahead."

- Playground taunts -

Albanese, a 59-year-old veteran Labor lawmaker, has tried to make the election a referendum on Morrison's performance.

His own "small target" campaign has given Morrison and Australia's partisan media few policies to shoot at, but also left voters guessing at what an Albanese-led government might bring.

The contest has been rough and tumble, highly personal and at times bordering on juvenile.

The Liberal party has splashed adverts claiming "it won't be easy with Albanese", and has repeatedly suggested he is dangerous and a "loose unit" on the economy.

Labor has hit back, imploring Australians to "fire the liar".

Around a third of voters are expected to look beyond traditional left and right parties as their first preference.

They can choose from an array of populists, the far-right and centrist independent candidates angered by the Liberals' pro-coal stance on climate.

"There's an absolute sense that Liberal voters who sit near the centre, who are perhaps economic conservatives and social progressives, that they've been left in the wilderness," Zoe Daniel, an independent candidate challenging one Melbourne constituency, told AFP.

- From flip-flops to bootstraps -

In the latter stages of the campaign, the focus has turned to the soaring cost of living in what was already one of the world's most expensive places to live.

Despite presiding over a record deficit, the first recession in a generation and sclerotic wage growth, Morrison's ability to reinvent his image and reframe the debate has kept his party well within touching distance.

One poll commissioned by The Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday predicted a Labor win, but put his re-election within the margin of error.

There is a perception Morrison's attacks on Albanese's "dangerous" economic plan may be starting to stick.

"I think there's a sense of change in this country. The question is, has the opposition done enough to convince people that change is a safe option?" said Kenny.

arb/djw/smw/je

EXPLAINER: What we know about shuttered baby formula plant

An Abbott Laboratories manufacturing plant is shown in Sturgis, Mich., on Sept. 23, 2010. In mid-February 2022, Abbott announced it was recalling various lots of three powdered infant formulas from the plant, after federal officials began investigating rare bacterial infections in four babies who got the product. Two of the infants died. But it's not certain the bacteria came from the plant; strains found at the plant didn't match the two available samples from the babies.

 (Brandon Watson/Sturgis Journal via AP, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — At the center of the nationwide baby formula shortage is a single factory: Abbott Nutrition’s plant that has been closed for more than three months because of contamination problems.

On Monday, U.S. officials announced a deal with Abbott that paves the way to restart production at the Sturgis, Michigan, facility, the largest in the U.S. and source of leading brands like Similac.

But it’s not yet clear how soon the site will be up and running. And even bigger questions remain unanswered, including what caused the contamination and whether U.S. regulators could have alleviated the current formula shortage by stepping in sooner. The plant shutdown exacerbated ongoing supply chain problems among U.S. formula makers.

WHAT CAUSED THE SHUTDOWN?

In mid-February, Abbott announced it was recalling various lots of three powdered infant formulas from the plant, after federal officials began investigating rare bacterial infections in four babies who were fed formula. Two of the infants died. But it’s not certain the bacteria came from the plant; strains found at the plant didn’t match the two available samples from the babies.

The company halted production while Food and Drug Administration inspectors conducted a six-week investigation of the plant.

A preliminary report released in March found traces of a bacteria — cronobacter— on several surfaces throughout the plant, though not in areas used to make the powder. Plant records showed Abbott had detected the bacteria eight times in its products or facility since 2019.

Inspectors also flagged other problems, including standing water on the floor and employees who didn’t properly sanitize their hands.

WHAT IS CRONOBACTER?

The bacteria occurs naturally in soil, water and other parts of the environment. Infections with cronobacter are rare but can be fatal in babies. Almost all previous outbreaks in the U.S. have been linked to powdered baby formulas, which don’t undergo the same high temperatures used to kill germs in many other foods.

Sometimes the bacteria can get into powdered formula after its opened at home if a dirty scoop is used or it is mixed with water that’s contaminated with the germ, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cronobacter typically causes fever in infants and can sometimes lead to dangerous blood infections or swelling of the brain.

The four reported illnesses were in Minnesota, Ohio and Texas between September and January.

WHAT ROLE DID ABBOTT’S FORMULA PLAY IN THE ILLNESSES?

It’s still not yet clear. The FDA hasn’t released a final ruling on the problems at the plant and whether they are linked to the infections.

“There are many factors involved in this ongoing investigation and we’re just not in a position to make any definitive statement,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said Monday..

Food safety experts say the case underscores the challenges of tracing foodborne illnesses.

Because there were only two samples collected from the four cases, “Right from the get-go we were limited in our ability,” to link the baby formula to the illnesses, said the FDA’s food director Susan Mayne. “We simply don’t have the evidence to demonstrate that causality.”

Abbot says the lack of a strain match indicates “there is no evidence to link our formulas to these infant illnesses.”

SHOULD THE FDA HAVE STEPPED IN SOONER?

The FDA is facing intense scrutiny about what steps it took — and didn’t — in the months before the recall.

FDA inspectors visited the factory in late September for a routine inspection, around the time that the first bacterial infection was reported in Minnesota. Although inspectors uncovered several violations— including standing water and unsanitary conditions — they didn’t find any bacteria and let the plant stay open. It’s unclear if inspectors were even aware of the first reported illness.

After three more cases were reported, the FDA returned to the plant in January and detected the bacteria.

The FDA mainly focuses on assuring the safety of the food supply, with extra regulations and standards on foods for babies and children. But former FDA officials say the agency is supposed to consider potential shortages that result from shutting down plants.

In previous cases, the FDA has worked with companies to shift production to other facilities or find alternative supplies.

The FDA is doing that now under a new policy that eases imports of baby formula from foreign manufacturers. But both the agency and the White House are facing questions on why that step wasn’t taken sooner.

“We always believe we can do better in terms of the time frame,” Califf said.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., reported last month that a whistleblower had contacted the FDA in October with allegations about unsafe conditions and practices at the plant, including falsifying plant records and failing to properly test formula for contamination. She said the FDA did not interview the whistleblower until late December. Califf is scheduled to answer questions from DeLauro and other lawmakers on Thursday.

WHEN WILL THE PLANT RESTART PRODUCTION?

Both the FDA and Abbott say they are working as quickly as possible to restart manufacturing at the plant. But FDA officials say the onus is on Abbott to demonstrate its Michigan plant meets rigorous safety standards.

Former FDA officials say fixing the type of problems uncovered at Abbott’s plant takes time, and infant formula facilities receive more scrutiny than other food types. Companies need to exhaustively clean the facility and equipment, retrain staff, repeatedly test and document that there is no contamination.

Even after the facility opens, Abbott says it will take eight-to-ten weeks before new products start shipping to stores. The company continues to produce baby formula at its other plants in the U.S. and overseas.

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Follow Matthew Perrone on Twitter: @AP_FDAwriter

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.